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Terrific troupe which danced for our troops

  • 8 May 2019
  • Worcester People and Places
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Worcester Evening News  August 1997

1940's photograph of a popular Worcester wartime dance and cabaret troupe paying tribute to a gifted local dancer who died recently (1997).

Mrs Elsi Butcher was born in New Street, Worcester and was involved for some years in the running of the family business which ran two butcher's shops in the Shambles. But she was best known as a talented pupil of the city's Gertrude Fisher Dance School. During the war years, she was in a group which danced for the troops, for wounded servicemen in military hospitals, and for the Free French at Malvern Winter Gardens. She appeared in pantomime at the former Worcester Theatre Royal and in major shows around the country including one with Morecambe and Wise, she was also an entertainer with her own cabaret troupe.

Mrs. Butcher became a qualified dance teacher of tap, ballroom and ballet and had a dance school at Fernhill Heath. After her marriage in 1958, she and husband David ran four dress shops in the Midlands.

Mrs Butcher is seen third from the right in picture below.